New Website!!

Thirteen years ago, I hired a high school student to design a basic webpage for me with nothing more than a couple of images and some contact information. If people wanted to see my artwork, they could email me and I would send current images. It was enough. Everybody didn't have websites back then, anyway.

A couple of years ago, I decided to join the modern age and create the ultimate website. One of my babysitters had just finished a class in web design . . . so I traded her my kiln to help me design a website (I love a good barter, and the kiln had become a coffee table in my studio). I bought tons of expensive software--plus the software reference books as well as Web Design for Dummies. My babysitter helped me when I had questions and helped me get everything set up, but I really wanted to do this MYSELF. I wanted to know what I was doing so that I could update and switch out images whenever I wanted. Sounds awesome, right?

I wish that I had left my old site up one more day, just so you could see the before and after. Let's just say that my website was pathetic. It was too busy, too slow--oh, and it only looked right on a Mac. MY Mac. On anyone else's computer, nothing lined up correctly, and there was a strange floating lavender box on the right side of the screen. I would sheepishly hand out my business cards at conferences saying, "My website is still kinda under construction, but you can sort of see some images on it. I hope to have a new site up soon . . . "

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the hair-pulling frustration that I experienced every time I tried to change anything (to fix one typo in the text for some reason always resulted in a good eight hours of trying to fix every single page and reload the entire thing). Just thinking about the whole experience is making my heart pound. Breathe, sf. Breathe.

Enter my guardian angels . . .

Thanks to Lisa and Laura who posted about their new fab website that they created in a weekend using a TEMPLATE, I now have a new site. Just in time for conference season. I can't wait to proudly hand out my business cards and say "Check out my website. No really. You can actually look at it. It will load. You can email me. You can see images. I can fix a typo in five minutes. I can upload new images in the time it takes me to reheat a latte."

So . . . pay me a visit at www.sfhardy.com. And, let me know if you see any typos. I can fix them!

sf

Random Ramblings and Muddy Monsters

Okay, so I am going to send in my revisions tomorrow. 

Whew.  

Thanks to all my cyber critiquers (as well as my in person critiquer, Katie).  Whatever happens, this whole process has made my manuscript and illustrations SO MUCH BETTER.  

And, now I feel like I can come up for air.  

Kind of. 

 I still need to totally revamp my website and get kickin' on my middle grade.  Oh, and did I mention that my children are here, there, and everywhere?  It is a desperate clutch for time around here, and I'm learning how to be "on" for fifteen minute blocks--jumps and snorts, basically.  

My older girls have been at camp this week, so Julia and I are home.  Just the two of us.  All day.  Every day.  And, she's five.  And, really doesn't like to be alone.  Yesterday, we both worked on illustrations for my book together.  

Mine:

Hers:

I think I'll frame hers.

Last night, I worked on one of my illustrations, and the monster in the picture kept turning into a muddy orange mess.  I finally fixed him, but Corey Schwartz pointed out that my facebook update which said something about "making muddy monsters" sounded like a great picture book.  Hmmm.

And, Christy . . . guess what I scored today.  

Give up?  Tickets to see David Sedaris.  He's going to be here in October, and I got an extra ticket (on the fifth row!) if you want to hitchhike down here and join me!

How's that for a brain-fried post?  Yum.  Fried . . . pickles anyone?

sf